Welcome to the Tea Potential Mobile Experiment.
The Tea Bike is equipped with the essential equipment for an elegant Tea Party.
On each expedition, the bicycle seeks out: plants to brew up, water, fuel for the fire and company.
The Tea Potential of each place is assessed on the availablity of these ingredients.
At the beginning of October, the Tea Bike took part in ‘Divergence n50.26 w03.40′: a show of playful interactions, thoughtful interuptions, and beautiful experients by ten graduation gstudents from the unique Arts & Ecology MA at Dartington College of Arts. With the help of Bicycology’s marvelous James who provided power with his pedalling, I presented the ‘Findings of the Tea Potential Mobile Experiment’ (so far) at the Cube Microplex. This was a summary of the tea bike’s adventures in Bristol from August and September.
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Friday 12th September: Plant walk round Martin Crawford’s Forest garden, Devon.
Frank Cook and Martin introduced us to particular plants, explaining their characteristics with passion.
Martin started the forest garden in 1994, and it is now an established and abundant space full of unusual plants, that are planted carefully to support one another. Many of the plants can be used as food, medicine, for dying or for fibres.
His project website is http://www.agroforestry.co.uk/
Martin explained the wonders of the Lime tree, and showed us a tree he keeps coppiced, to keep a crop of frest leaves for salads.
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Frank is another tea enthusiast. He said that tea (of the foraged variety) is the best medicine. Different parts of the plant have different healing properties: the roots are useful for chronic conditions; the stem is structural; the leaves contain a lot of nutrients; the flowers support us emotionally; and the seeds are for the next generation.
http://www.plantsandhealers.com/
Frank introduced us to the many properities of the humble dock, which greatly surprised me. The root purifies and detoxes the system. It can be made into a tea or tincture. The leaves are edible, and Frank described making a lasagne using dock leaves instead of spinach.
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